107624-recent-phishing-emails-they-look-almost-legit
Content ---- ---- ---- Hmmm... I did a search for any threads related to this subject before posting my post, but I never found that post you linked. The email response I got from the support team was so it appears to me that if the address truly is legit, then they haven't informed all of the Carbine staff about it. Regardless, I'd consider it extremely bad practice to use an ad firm to send out marketing emails; the format more or less scream "phishing attempt" and it's providing ground work for other scammers since it makes users less aware of which addresses that are legit and which are not.They should stick to only sending out emails from the officially legit addresses and keep the number of legit addresses to a minimum. I'll personally keep considering @email-wildstar-online.com as a scammer email solely to be on the safe side. I prefer to not get any info through emails over getting my account taken over; besides I get all important info about releases from the launcher anyway. | |} ---- ---- ---- Whether that is true or not, i would still consider it bad practice to advertise that way. For an official advertisement from the actual company it should have a banner, picture or poster. And underneath it I think it should say for "For more information visit the wildstar online homepage". And thats it...no links PERIOD, not even a link to the official wildstar homepage on the email. If phishing scammers get word that WS emails out official advertisements this way, whats the stop them from copying the message format for their own phishing attempts? | |} ---- Links are required to track clicks and visits. If they want to know how many people actually read the email and follow through they need links with specific parameters or callback URLs. Basic email marketing 101 | |} ---- It's nice to hear that it's legit so that no one is endangering their account by clicking the links, but you guys should really take to heart that the emails gets attention as phishing attempts. If "many" people get a red flag warning (I don't know how many people have actually tagged the emails as scam, but there are other posts on the subject that I missed before creating my post) from the email format, then you need to talk to the ad firm and make them come up with a better solution. I'd personally prefer it if you didn't use a third party email address with tracker links since that is really screaming "I want to steal your data", but in the end it's really up to Carbine to decide. I'll personally keep having my email settings to deliver anything but the three legit addresses (@ncsoft.com, @arena.net and @carbinestudios.com) to my junk box; simply because sooner or later an actual scammer will notice that it's an easy way to get players to click links pointing to malicious sites, all they need to do is to copy the format of the ad firm. Imho, do not make it easy for the scammers! It's also basic email scamming 101. Plus, many of the internet users are nowadays doing all they can to block trackers and redirects for safety reasons so legit ad firms really need to change the way they work if they want to continue. I'm by no means an expert on the subject, but it should be fully possible to get the same info that the ad firm wants without making the emails look like phishing emails; wouldn't a link to the actual website with a referral tag at the end suffice (e.g. link to "www.wildstar-online.com/newcontent&referral=email" instead of "www.malicious-looking-addres.com/tracker-inject")? | |} ---- Yes and No, but requires major changes on both sides, which is often not worth the investment. Plus including links to sides orginiating to a different domain the domain lookup of the sender will result in the emails being flagged as SPAM. It's easy on paper, but emails is one of the most complicated things out there unfortunatly. | |} ---- wildstar-online.com wildstar-online.com/en/drops/2/sabotage/ (thats the link in the button, but i had to take out the http) bottom of the page add in a "you are visitor #100" for tracking purposes. That right there tells you that i skipped school the day they taught "basic email marketing 101". But that's because i had gone to the bookstore that day to pick up my copy of "how to avoid phishing scams for dummies" and so that i could buy a roll of tin foil and an instruction manual on how to fold hats. | |} ---- ---- Gimme that hat! | |} ----